John Willys
John North Willys ( born October 25, 1873 in Canandaigua, Ontario County, New York; † August 26, 1935 in the Bronx, New York City ) was an American automotive pioneer and statesman.
Willys began as a young man with the sale of bicycles in his hometown and enlarged within a short time his company so much that he would make his own bikes. In 1897 he married Isabel Van Wie and opened a little later in Elmira (New York), an automobile trading business. There he sold very successful brand vehicles Overland. Due to delivery problems at the manufacturer from Indianapolis he bought this in 1907. He proved to be smarter businessman and managed to let shine the falling star of the society. In 1909 he bought the Marion Motor Car Company in Indianapolis and moved a few years later all its activities in a factory, which he had bought from the bankrupt Pope Motor Car Co. in Toledo.
After he had changed the name of his company in 1912 in Willys -Overland Motor Company, John Willys bought the following year, the Edwards Motor Co. in New York and thus a license to manufacture the sleeve valve engines after the patents of Charles Yale Knight. He was successful and his company became the second largest car manufacturer in the USA ( according to Ford). In 1915 he built a seven-story headquarters in Toledo, the most advanced of the time. Even before the end of the decade, a third of all workers were employed in either Toledo Willys -Overland or at one of the many small suppliers. His automotive empire offered to the customer automobiles from Overland, Willys and Willys -Knight; each brand had its own engine this concept and its own price range. The holding company bought the Moline Plow Co. in 1918 in Moline (Illinois), established the tractors of the Universal brand and brand cars Stephens. The following year, Willys also won influence in the company Duesenberg, mainly to buy the factory of the Duesenberg brothers in Elizabeth (New Jersey), where he wanted to make his new six-cylinder car.
In the Willys -Overland plant in Toledo, there were increasing difficulties with the workers, which led to a wildcat strike in 1919, the month- long closed down the factory. Willys made the Vice President of General Motors, Walter Chrysler, as head of the Willys- Overland plant and paid him for that time immensely high annual salary of one million dollars. But Chrysler tried to push John Willys by a takeover offer from his company, but this failed because of the opposition of the shareholders. Chrysler then left the company in 1921 and founded his own company.
The Company by John Willys were indeed very profitable, but also deeply in debt because he had either acquired or enlarged with massive loans. 1921 forced his nervous bankers him to consolidate in order to limit their risks. To get cash for the repayment of debt, the Willys -Overland factory in New Jersey was sold to William C. Durant, as well as Willys ' New Process Gear Company in Syracuse. After Willys now had its debt back under control, he expanded again and bought 1925 FJ Stearns Co. in Cleveland, which produced luxury automobiles. In 1926 Willys Whippet the one brand that was sold in the U.S., Canada and Australia.
John Willys was a respected businessman and ardent supporter of the Republicans for which he participated as a representative of Ohio in 1916 at the Republican National Convention. After the election of Herbert Hoover as U.S. president Willys was appointed the first United States Ambassador to Poland in March 1930, a post he held until May 1932. Originally Alexander Pollock Moore was nominated by Hoover, but he died before he could take the oath of office.
The world economic crisis of the 1930s forced many automakers to close their doors, and the companies of Willys came in 1933 in bankruptcy. The following year, John Willys and his wife after 37 -year marriage divorced; Willys soon remarried, but died in 1935 of a heart attack at home in the Bronx.
John North Willys is interred in the Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla.